Despite the complicated sound of this word, there’s no mystery to it. Phyto- simply means "plant," and phytonutrient supplements contain nutrients derived from plants. Each of those nutrients is thought to have some sort of health benefit. Some can help reduce inflammation and aid digestion. Others may help protect your arteries from plaque, the sticky stuff that can clog up blood vessels and raise your risk of heart attack or stroke. Still others can help reduce cell damage.
Once isolated from the plant material, phytonutrients can be recombined in various ways. A phytonutrient such as isoflavone, for instance, may be isolated and concentrated from soybeans, then put into a pill. Add some lycopene from tomatoes, some beta-carotene from carrots, and a few anthocyanins from red cabbage, and you have a sort of vegetable soup in a pill that may, at least in theory, give you many of the health benefits of a real vegetable soup.
A Surfeit of Nutrients
Sometimes, there are so many nutrients included in a supplement that the soup is almost a stew. One well-known vitamin manufacturer, for example, makes a supplement called the MaxiLife Phytonutrient Protector. The greenish yellow, grassy-smelling capsules contain beta- and alpha-carotene, lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, citrus bioflavonoids, quercetin, bilberry extract, pine bark extract, red cabbage extract, red wine concentrate, grape skin extract, elderberry extract, green tea extract, soy isoflavone concentrate, citrus terpene extract, broccoli extract, garlic, rosemary extract, and turmeric extract.
Many of these food components have some potential value, at least when they are consumed as part of your diet. Rosemary, for instance, is a strong antioxidant that helps to protect cells from the kind of speeded-up aging and cell damage that can be caused by free-roaming, unstable molecules called free radicals. In fact, it works so well that rosemary oil extract is used as a food preservative.
Another phytonutrient source, turmeric, is a yellow spice that’s often used in Indian cooking. It can help reduce inflammation and aid digestion.
But what if you are getting only a pill-size amount of the nutrient in a pill? "It is possible to isolate and then concentrate certain components from foods—such as isoflavones from soybeans—and come up with a pill that contains as many isoflavones as a serving of tofu," says Holly McCord, R.D., Prevention magazine’s nutrition editor.
What the Labels Leave Out
It’s hard to tell just by looking at the label of a supplement whether you’re getting a substantial amount of a phytonutrient or just a smidgen. "Right now, it is very difficult to evaluate such products," says Ronald Prior, Ph.D., a research scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.
Since there’s no standardization of such products, the only thing you can count on when shopping for phytonutrient supplements is a lot of inconsistency. Even though, based on their labels, products seem similar, the potency of each product is different.
SUPPLEMENTSNAPSHOT
| Phytonutrients Individual names: Isoflavone, lycopene, carotenes, anthocyanins, lutein, and zeaxanthin, among others. May help: Cancer, heart disease, stroke, restless legs syndrome, and macular degeneration. Special instructions: Take with food. Good food sources: Strawberries, blueberries, Concord grape juice, red wine, tea, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, limes, red onions, red cabbage, broccoli, carrots, kale, pumpkin, herbs, spices, garlic, and tomatoes. Cautions and possible side effects: Don’t take more than the recommended dosage. Never consider supplements as a substitute for food; the best variety and quantities of phytonutrients are found in a diet that’s rich in fruits and vegetables. |
"You can’t knock all these products," concludes Dr. Prior. "Some are good and some not so good. Right now, though, there’s no way for the consumer to really tell which ones are good just from reading the labels."
One product’s daily dose offers 100 milligrams of soy isoflavone concentrate, which can help reduce the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. That’s about the amount found in 1½ cups of tofu. It also has 25,000 international units of beta-carotene, which helps resist cell damage and reduces the risk of some kinds of cancer. You’d get only half that much in a nine-inch carrot. With the supplement providing an additional 100 milligrams of citrus bioflavonoid complex—another cell-protecting cancer fighter—you’ll get about the same amount that you’d find in one or two Valencia oranges.
That same supplement product, however, contains only 5 milligrams of lycopene, the red pigment in tomatoes that’s linked with a reduction in prostate cancer. By comparison, ½ cup of tomato sauce has 22 milligrams.
Even paying top dollar doesn’t assure quality, Dr. Prior has found. "Some of the better products that we have evaluated are also the cheapest," he says.
Picking the Phytos
How can you make the best selection from the variety of phytonutrient products on the market?
You might think that the more, the better, but unfortunately, the quantity of phytonutrients doesn’t determine the quality of the supplement. Three sources of flavonoids listed on a label, for instance, might seem impressive. But, notes Dr. Prior, that number is small compared to approximately 4,000 different flavonoids in all of the different fruits and vegetables.
The best policy is to select a major store brand or a product from a major manufacturer, who has more to lose if it’s revealed that a product doesn’t deliver what it promises, McCord suggests.
Avoid products that simply say "broccoli" or "parsley" in their list of ingredients. It means that you are getting only a costly, microscopic, freeze-dried serving of that vegetable. Instead, look for products whose labels say that they contain standardized extracts of a phytonutrient. It’s no guarantee, but it at least suggests some initial quality control, Dr. Prior says.
Also, look for a mixture of those phytonutrients with the strongest evidence of health benefits. These include mixed carotenoids (just beta-carotene is not enough) including lycopene, suggests Andrew Weil, M.D., clinical professor of internal medicine and director of the program in integrative medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, and author of Eight Weeks to Optimum Health. Or look for a supplement that includes substantial amounts of a particular phytonutrient you want, he says.
If you’re concerned about prostate cancer, for instance, look for lycopene. If you’re worried about macular degeneration, a common cause of deteriorating vision in older people, look for capsules that contain lutein and zeaxanthin, the two phytonutrients that, in dietary studies, seem to be most strongly linked with reduced risk of this condition.
Whatever phytonutrients you take, it’s important to keep in mind that they are not substitutes for real fruits and vegetables, says McCord. "I used to think it was just a philosophical thing, but there is more and more evidence that there does seem to be something beneficial about getting nutrients in the whole food package as opposed to just taking supplements." You still need to consume the natural sources of these health-conferring compounds.
